hearse

• enPR: hûrs
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /hɜːs/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /hɝs/

• Audio (UK)

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• Homophone: herse
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)s

From Middle English herse, hers, herce, from Old French herce, from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin herpicem, hirpex; ultimately from Oscan 𐌇𐌉𐌓𐌐𐌖𐌔 (hirpus, “wolf”), a reference to the teeth, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“stiff, rigid, bristled”).[1] The Oscan term is related to Latin hīrsūtus (“bristly, shaggy”). Doublet of hirsute.

• herse (obsolete)

hearse (plural hearses)

1. A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.
2. A grave, coffin, tomb, or sepulchral monument.
   • 1621, Ben Jonson, Epitath to Mary Herbert:

     underneath this sable hearse

   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Third Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC:

     Beside the hearse a fruitful palm tree grows,

   • 1882, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, To the Avon:

     who lies beneath this sculptured hearse

3. A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.

4. A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.

• “hearse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “hearse”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “hearse”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

hearse (third-person singular simple present hearses, present participle hearsing, simple past and past participle hearsed)

1. (dated) To enclose in a hearse; to entomb.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!

hearse (plural hearses)

1. Alternative form of hearst (“A hind (female deer) in the second or third year of her age”)

• harees, heares, sharee